Happy Birthday Ali!

To Ali, the girl upon whom I’ve had a perpetual crush of sorts for a solid portion of my adult life. I mean that in the best/most flatterous way. I present to you a photo of some cake. Pretty great right? Not only that, but you’ve got perpetual ownership and reproduction rights (see alt text) on this image. Heck, I’ll even give you the original Photoshop and raw file. That’s like 15mb of birthday presentdom.

This is not what I had intended to make. The original idea was to be a birthday-candle-lit self portrait extending some undetermined expression to the viewer. Not deadpan, not joyous – perhaps an eyebrow raised or something approaching suggestivity. Why not, right? Upon trying this with a less than professional setup, I managed to catch some of my volumnious hair on fire. Also there wasn’t enough light. There were all kinds of problems, and the candles were getting shorter by the second. I finally abandoned that idea and opted to walk around the piece of cake and shoot on a whim. This is the best I could do in that minute or so.

Not to say I don’t like it. It’s got the glean of melting frosting, the spongy texture of case up close, the great shape of a tiny flame and the evidence it leaves behind as it devours a candle. Threw some text over it, playing with layer masks and gradients to get the sleek look on the lettering.

Hey Ali, happy birthday. Also, I might need a place to crash in NYC for a night in the not too distant future. Just sayin’